I finally cracked the code on Kengan Ashura after watching the twelve episodes that make up the first half of its second season. While it likes to style itself as a martial arts series that elevates various fighting styles and hypothesizes how those forms would interact when pitted against each other, it doesn't understand its subject matter enough or have the writing chops to execute on that premise. This is not an anime for people who like martial arts or combat sports; this is an anime for people who like Dana White's Power Slap and enjoy seeing people inflict novel harm on each other.

This is fine if you're into that kind of thing, and if you are, chances are you've already discovered and checked out Kengan Ashura. If you've stuck with the series through the first season, you're set to be rewarded in season two, as this is the best the show has ever been. Though animation issues persist, and it's whiplash-inducing when the camera cuts between characters rendered in a 2D style, a serviceable 3D style, and an ugly 3D style, the character writing is stronger than ever. There's finally enough humor to blunt its edgy attitude.

The best example of this comes from fighter and professional wrestler Sekibayashi Jun. For his match, he enters the ring as his heel persona, the Marvelous Seki, and wears makeup that's clearly evocative of The Undertaker. He also enters the ring amid an implied satanic ritual as the pre-vocal opening of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" plays. This gag is the exact kind of dumb fun Kengan Ashura desperately needed and is much appreciated.

Jun's fight is also the most moving in the series thus far. Throughout it, we learn that he grew up in a broken home and was a delinquent until he began training as a professional wrestler. In the process, he formed the most important relationships, entered an emotionally fulfilling career, and gained his core values and beliefs. While it's a little strange that this relationship to their chosen discipline isn't extended to any other fighters, it's nice to finally see a character in Kengan Ashura who enjoys their craft and finds an inherent value in it.

That said, there are still some glaring issues in Kengan Ashura's writing that make it difficult to recommend as anything more than a show you have playing in the background while your brain is turned off. The CEOs of the companies sponsoring Jun and his opponent, Muteba Gizenga, met before their match and discussed allying. As they're both self-motivated people, they decide that the loser will support the winner in their efforts to become Kengan Association chairman through the tournament. However, this alliance is needless, as the loser is no longer beneficial to the winner. Also, as only the CEO of the winning company gets to select the next Association chairperson, these CEOs ideally should have made these kinds of arrangements with people on opposite sides of the tournament bracket before it began. This is a needless conversation masquerading as political intrigue and denotes how poor the show is at setting up tension, creating believable character dynamics, or creating interesting situations.

Furthering these points are the supposed leads of the show, Yamashita Kazuo and Tokita Ohma, who are barely in this season as Tokia is in a recovery coma and Yamashita is by his fighter's bedside. At the end of part two of the first season, and literally a day ago in the timeline of the show, Yamashita just discovered that his misanthropic son was apparently the secret head of a major corporation and nearly died at the hands of a family of assassins. This doesn't come up at all and retroactively makes his storyline in the past season worse, as this part of the first season renders it inconsequential.

In the last two episodes of this batch of episodes, Tokita has a coma dream where he recalls training with his deceased master, Tokita Niko. This segment does have an interesting fight where a younger Tokita uses broken glass bottles to stymie his opponent's penchant for takedown moves and wrestling techniques and humanizes Tokita by showing more of his relationship with his adoptive father. However, Kengan Ashura uses this coma time as a shortcut for character growth. Tokita wakes up from it as a more balanced person with memories and information about a secret organization still unknown to the audience. It tries to give Tokita a character arc but doesn't understand that any resolution or growth in the character is meaningless to the audience if we don't witness the processes that lead to those conclusions.

And that gets to what continues to be the core issue with Kengan Ashura. It can't just be dumb fun; instead, it tries and fails to mimic other martial arts and tournament-focused series. It doesn't understand why its contemporaries like Baki, Yu-Yu Hakusho, or Dragon Ball are successful. Instead, they do an edgier and less thorough version of tropes presented in these genres, even if there are parts of this season I like more than ever — like the music, Imari Williams' performance as the new English VA for commentator Jerry Tyson, and the attempts at character growth — it all feels too little too late.

Even as the end of this batch of episodes sets up more intense fights than ever and a whole new secret organization with its agenda, the show hasn't done the work to make me feel invested in those plot points or give me confidence that it will execute well on those ideas.